Dijkstra's algorithm is a method for finding the shortest paths from one point in a network to all others, devised by the Dutch computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra. He conceived it in 1956, reportedly in about twenty minutes without pencil and paper while shopping with his fiancee in Amsterdam, as a demonstration of a new computer, and published it in 1959. The algorithm works on a graph with non-negative edge weights by repeatedly picking the nearest unvisited node and updating the distances of its neighbors. It became one of the most widely taught algorithms and is used in route planning, network routing protocols and many other applications. Dijkstra also contributed to structured programming and concurrency and received the Turing Award in 1972.
Before and after
- 1959Creation of ALGOL
- from 1959 to 1961Great Chinese Famine
- 1959Construction of Boryspil International Airport
- 1959Founding of York University
- 1959Invention of Dijkstra's algorithm
- 1 January 1959Castro's revolution takes power in Cuba
- 2 January 1959Launch of Luna 1
- 2 February 1959Dyatlov Pass incident
- 8 February 1959Birth of Mauricio Macri
More in Science & technology
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 1971Email
- 1973Mobile phone
- 20 November 1985Creation of Microsoft Windows
- August 2003Discovery of moscovium
- 2006Discovery of nihonium
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.